by successfulbob | black & white, Lumix FZ 1000, Lumix Lounge, photography, photography education
Take away the color!
Let the shape, form and tones come forward… Simplify.
It’s easy to do but not necessarily simple.
Making black and white conversions of our images can give a whole new level of depth to our image making skills. With the ability to touch every single pixel we have more control than ever before. Ansel Adams would have been in Heaven to have this level of control to achieve the image he saw in his mind. That was what the Zone System and his special ways of exposing the scene and processing film not to mention choosing paper, light source and dodging and burning in the darkroom to pull the print he wanted.
Today’s subject is a green bloom from a Gopher Plant. Lots of green tones from light to dark are represented in the capture. By the way I used the Lumix FZ 1000 in Macro mode. When zooming in to 400mm you can fill a frame pretty well with it’s minimum focusing distance of 3.3 feet. If you shoot wider you can focus down to 3 centimeters but without adding supplemental light I find I have too many shadows to deal with so photographing from a distance can be helpful. In this case I was back just a bit with a 27mm equivalent setting.
Original capture.
Different settings and conversions to black and white.
You may or may not like the one I choose which is a combination of some of the settings seen above. The point is through experimentation and using different ways of stripping color from an image you can create many different feelings from the same information. One of my favorite programs for converting to black and white is Google’s NIK Silver FX Pro 2. By the way if you own a license for almost any NIK product Google will hook you up at no charge for the full NIK software suite. If you don’t have a current one you can get the suite for, I believe, $149. This is some solid software with lots of creative possibilities.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | black & white, fine art photography, photography, photography education
Experimenting.
Sarasota.
Sandpipers.
I call these overexposed images ‘sketches’. I enjoy the minimalist detail that comes forward yet still has a story to tell with my camera. I call this image ‘Three on Three’
Sandpipers scurrying on the beach in Sarasota, Florida with snowbirds coming in their direction.
Here it is pushed just a bit further taking away the color and adding a bit of contrast… I see something interesting happening here and I’ll explore this with a larger subject. Maybe with some washes of color…
When was the last time you pushed your camera to do something a little different? Overexposure, underexposure, movement during capture whether zooming or panning or twisting or… Well, you get the idea.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | black & white, Lumix Lounge, photography
Heading to Denver tonight to do some speaking at Mike’s Camera stores Friday, Saturday and Sunday for the Photo Expo. I’ll be talking about the Lumix 4K video capabilities and some of the new cameras Panasonic is putting out. It’s some pretty amazing stuff. If you are in the Denver area stop by Mike’s and check out the new Micro 4/3rds 4K video gear!
Here’s the the stuff I’ll be touching on…
Fine Art, Commercial Photography and 4K Videography
Program description – Fine Art and Commercial Photography is a specialty of Lumix Luminary Bob Coates. 4K video capture is a specialty of the newest cameras in the Lumix line. Bob has been working on ways to use the 4K video capture to enhance his commercial and art captures by pulling stills for processing into artistic images. Bob will also share some of his ideas on using Photoshop to max out the potential of the capture possibilities.
Friday in Boulder. Saturday in Park Meadows. Sunday Colorado Boulevard store.
Had to add some photos to the post so I thought a couple details from the Denver airport would do nicely…
Took away the clarity and most of the color in post…
The brushed metal and slick floor called for the exact opposite treatment and all color was removed and more sharpness added.
Images were captured with the Lumix GH2 and the 14-140mm lens. This is the gear set-up that got me excited about the Micro 4/3rds system. And it’s only gotten better!
Yours in creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | black & white, fine art photography, landscape photography, people photography, photography, photography education
The Five day Black and White Challenge has been floating around the Internet for the last couple months. The basic premise is that a photographer will post a BW image everyday for 5 days at the same time inviting a new photographer each day to join in the challenge. After being tagged a couple times I jumped in… Here are the 5 black and white photos I posted with the comments. What I thought was going to be a PIA turned out to be pretty cool and I’ve been exposed to a lot of new black and white photography images as a result…
Day 1
This from Monument Valley and the box canyon. I like the Shadowed canyon wall, back
light on the horses and the settling dust that give this image it’s depth.
Day 2
Here’s an image captured on the streets of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
His name is Doc and is a truly wonderful character. He was introduced to me by Dennis Chamberlain
Day 3
Scan from an image taken out of the darkroom soup almost 30 years ago… I sometimes wonder if the images we have on our computers will last as long as this. I was actually quite surprised by how much detail was still available. Print origin 1985.
Day 4
Day 4 came from Italy. BW really adds a timeless fell to this image allowing
all the shape, form and textures to shine through with no distraction from color…
Day 5
Repeating shapes, forms, tones and leading lines from this hilltop town in Tuscan region in Italy close out my 5 day challenge.
It’s always good to accept a challenge to push and get feedback on your image making skills. What have you done lately??
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | black & white, musician photography, people photography, photography, photography education, photoshop tutorial
If you send out press releases or images for ads that will be appearing in newspapers I highly recommend a few steps to ensure that you get good looking images when the paper goes to print.
Eric Miller image converted to black and white using the LAB mode in Photoshop with a curves bump.
Number one – Do not send a color image unless it is possible the image is going to be printed in color. Many times in the newspaper world since they are on deadline and shorthanded the conversion from a color image to black and white is to desaturate the image. Period. There is no consideration for the tones or where they fall or what colors are going to come forward. I highly recommend using a method I have made with a Photoshop Action.
Convert the file to LAB Color Mode In the Channels Palette Select the B Channel and Delete it. Then Select and Delete Channel Alpha 2. Convert the file to Greyscale Mode. Convert the file to RGB Mode. Add a Curves Adjustment Layer. Pull down on the 3/4 tone and up on the 1/4 tone in the Curves Dialog box adding contrast to the image.
This makes for a pretty clean BW and with the Curves Adjustment Layer you can make changes to the highlights and shadows if necessary before saving the file. If you would like this action already complete rather than building it yourself send me an email and I’ll get it to you.
The other thing that will help your image stand out in newsprint is to sharpen your image until it almost looks too crunchy on your screen and when printed with the spread of ink it will be sharp in print. If an image is not ‘over sharpened’ this way the spread of ink will make it look soft. Here’s what I do…
Flatten the image. Go to Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask with these settings – Amount 500% Radius 1.7 Threshold 7. Your image will look frightening! Wait there’s more… Go to Edit > Fade Unsharp Mask Change the Mode to Luminousity and fade to 40% Opacity. Your image will look a bit sharp but will print beautifully on newsprint at these settings. Want that action? Email me.
Conversion and sharpening will make your images stand out from the rest…
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | black & white, fine art portrait, Lumix GX7, Lumix Lounge, people photography, photography, photography education
As I was having lunch in Durango, Colorado I noticed the animation of our bartender. I explained that I was a photographer on a busman’s holiday and would she mind posing and giving me a few different expressions? She agreed. I had an image pop into my head that is like something below.
This is in process. Thoughts??
Adding some clouds…
Black and white version.
Feedback invited. Working title is ‘Three faces of Libby’.
Image captured with the Lumix GX7 and the 35-100mm f2.8 Vario lens. It’s a very compact camera that is not intimidating to those who you wish to be subjects on the fly…
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
